Movie Reviews

A Superb Bartoli/Haydn/Mozart Budget-Priced 2DVD Set

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 03/23/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This 2-DVD set combines previous single-DVD issues featuring mezzo Cecilia Bartoli accompanied by Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting his long-time group, Concentus Music Wien, at the Styriarte Festival in Graz, Austria. And it costs about 25% less than the two DVDs would cost if bought separately. Amazon sells the individual DVDs, if you should want only one or the other, and there are reviews for each of them at their respective product pages. Bartoli's singing is so musical, so technically superior that I shan't even attempt to talk about it, other than to say that there is no one before the public today who can sing this music any better. Both DVDs contain subtitles in English and audio in either Dolby stereo or surround sound.The Mozart DVD contains five concert arias (actually, they are all replacement or insertion arias for various of his or others' operas). Amazon has not listed them yet; they are 'Voi avete un cor fedele' (written for insertion into a now-forgotten opera by Baldassarre Galuppi), 'Vado, ma dove? Oh Dei!' (for an opera by Martin y Soler), 'Giunse alfin il momento - Al desio di chi t'adora' (an aria Mozart wrote to replace 'Deh vieni non tardar' from Marriage of Figaro); 'Giunse alfin' is the original recitativo for 'Deh vieni'), 'Un moto di gioia mi sento' (to replace Susanna's 'Venite, inginocchiavete,' also in Figaro), and 'Bella mia fiamma, addio' (for an opera by Jommelli).In the latter aria, Bartoli sings some of the most difficult coloratura and chromatic lines ever composed by Mozart. Legend has it that he wrote it as he did to test the soprano Josephine Duscheck's vaunted sight-reading ability. She failed the test. Add to this the fact that this is an extraordinarily beautiful and dramatic aria, fully the equal of, say, 'Or sai che l'onore' or 'Come scoglio.'Extras on the Mozart DVD include a complete performance by Harnoncourt and his band of Mozart Symphony No. 38, 'Prague,' as well as thirty minutes of rehearsal footage and a mini-documentary about how the concert was filmed in the lovely baroque hall used by the festival in Graz (which happens, also, to be Harnoncourt's hometown).The Haydn disc contains two large pieces for soprano (or high mezzo) and orchestra, the solo cantata 'Arianna a Naxos,' a 22-minute retelling of the tale of Ariadne abandoned on Naxos before she is rescued by Dionysus (Bacchus, as the Romans called him). Haydn wrote the cantata for soprano and piano, and never got around to orchestrating it. This performance features a 19th-century string orchestra arrangement by an unknown hand. The second piece, 'Scena di Berenice,' was written by Haydn for Anna Milder (Beethoven's first Leonore in 'Fidelio') and was the model (acknowledged by him) Beethoven took for his better-known concert scena 'Ah, perfido!' The text is taken from Metastasio's 'Antigono' and tells a story similar to that of Ariadne: Berenice attempts to come to terms with her loneliness after the death of her lover, Demetrio. Both are sung with incandescence by Bartoli.Extras on the Haydn DVD: A complete performance of Haydn's wonderfully quirky 'Oxford' Symphony, No. 92; fifteen-minutes of rehearsal footage with Harnoncourt and Bartoli; and a mini-documentary about the Styriarte Festival, in the fairy-tale setting of medieval Graz.This two-DVD set is self-recommending, of course. We are treated to performances by Cecilia Bartoli at the height of her powers. Lovers of baroque music should be ever-grateful that such a prominent diva as Bartoli has recently been devoting herself to music from that era. There is none better.Heartily recommended.DVD I = 115 mins
DVD II = 83 minsScott Morrison"